


Day Job

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [647]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:42:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23465596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: Anonymous askedJohn and 67 please (John anon)67: Day Job - Sunshine State
Series: prompt ficlets [647]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/53353
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	Day Job

The elevator opened – _on the seventh floor of hell_ , a little voice in his head chimed in as it always did – and disgorged half the tightly crowded pack out into the maze of cubicles.

John dragged his feet as much as he dared, sharing nods with Dave dawdling by the photocopier and Lucy drinking very very slowly by the water cooler, ignoring Grace’s meaningful glare as she glanced at her watch, like she did every single day.

The routine never changed.

Despite the endless time he’d been here, John still had to count the identical cubicles to find his, two across and three down. They weren’t allowed photos or art, just endless beige walls that look like they could take a pushpin and that lied. His computer was beige, and clunked as it powered on and slowly, slowly began to boot. His phone was flashing a message, and he punched replay.

“John, fight, it’s not rea-” the message cut off in a squeal of feedback that had him dropping the receiver in surprise. He scrambled for the handset and hit replay, but this time there was only dial tone. He tugged at his tie, his cheap suit jacket suddenly feeling too tight across the shoulders. His headache was coming back, a halo around his temples, and he tried to massage it away.

His computer’s CPU chattered to itself as it loaded, and John blinked at the boot messages scrolling across the screen.

_wakeup  
wakeup  
wakeup  
wakeup  
wakeup  
wakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeupwakeup…  
_

John jerked back at the computer chimed and the scrolling messages disappeared beneath the login screen.

He chuckled nervously under his breath, pulling harder on his tie. Was it hotter than normal in here? He jolted, the castor wheels of his chair skidding over the thin carpet, as his phone rang.

“Hello?” he asked nervously.

“They’re almost there,” a sweet voice said. A girl? Did someone sneak their daughter into work. “Get ready.”

“Wha-?” His question was cut off by every phone in the entire open plan starting to ring, a cacophony of noise that made John flinch, clutching at his head.

His fingers found wires.

Without thought, only panic, he tugged.

The lights went out.

He woke up, head pounding and heart racing. What happened? A bomb? An earthquake? He should find people, get out of the building. “Dave?” he called, voice raspy and hurting. “Lucy? Grace?”

Hands gripped his shoulders, and a helmet swam into view. Rescue?

“Of course you’d start pulling wires before EOS hacked the simulation,” the voice inside the helmet said. “Lie down, they’ve scrambled you.”

John reached out, fingers a death grip in the newcomers arm. The texture under his hand was more familiar than the cheap nylon blend of his suit. “Virgil?”

“Hey, bro, welcome back,” the voice said as John swayed, the office being replaced with the lab in a nauseating kaleidoscope of overlapping images. “Guys, he’s in a bad way, can I pull him out yet?”

John can’t hear the reply, but out sounds good. Hands hold him back as he tries to sit up, and his heart starts racing as the flicker of space speeds up. Then it is gone, like a dam in front of a river, and John remembers everything.

The scream catches him by surprise too, and goes on for far too long.

* 

Thunderbird Two is safe and warm and familiar, and John lets himself huddle under the blanket on the medibay bunk, trying to sort in his head what memories are real and what was a simulation. His brothers–how could he have forgotten his _brothers_ –are giving him space to think and sort and regain some sense of order.

“Eos?” he asked at last.

“Yes John?” It’s a sign of how scared they were that Virgil has let Eos into his Bird, but John is so glad she’s there he can’t put into words. “How are you feeling?”

“Confused. Angry.”

“Talking may help restore order. What did they simulate?”

“An office. We were…coding, I think.” It’s all very blurry, and he shook his head at the overlapping memories, a real lab and a false office blending together and suddenly resolving into knowledge. “Oh shit.”

“John?” Scott asked, drifting over, concern still etching lines on his face.

“Turn around, we need to go back.”

“Like hell!” It comes in stereo, so in sync in made John smile. “Why on earth do you want to go back?” Scott continued. “The GDF are already on site.”

John shrugged off the blanket and stood tall. “Scott. They were tricking me into recoding another AI.”

Scott was a statue for a long time. “Virgil? Turn us around.”

John watched the clouds streak by and hoped like hell they weren’t too late to undo what he had unwittingly done.


End file.
